USC Lacrosse’s Avery Hogarth Creating a Discussion Forum for Political Outsiders

UPCOMING EVENT: "Grassroots Insurgency from the Left and Right" — A debate between Pat Harris and Austin Petersen
Tuesday, Nov. 28th | Wallis Annenberg Hall | 12-1:30 p.m.

USC Athletics has always had a reputation for recruiting strong foreign athletes to come compete and study in LA. Toronto native, Avery Hogarth, realized as a young lacrosse player that coming to university in the United States was a sizable goal of hers that motivated her to work hard in order to get recruited and thus develop here in the American university system to reach her potential as an athlete.

As she grew and developed her talent to become a standout lacrosse player, she realized that there were many other benefits to coming to the United States besides just sport. In high school, she was sufficiently interested and felt compelled to learn more from her American studies classes, including history and politics.

She suggests that American politics and history are "more entertaining and complex than in Canada. I knew after taking these classes that I wanted to work in American politics and would bring a special perspective as a Canadian."

Therefore, Hogarth's childhood dream of coming to the United States to play lacrosse was further solidified with the addition of her pursuit of knowledge surrounding the American political culture and experience.

Hogarth is studying Political Science and minoring in Business Law here at USC. She is in her second year in the lacrosse program, having transferred in after one year at University of Vermont. She cites the greater opportunities of both athletics and academics as the main draws towards transferring to USC.

Early this fall, the Women of Troy lacrosse team was busy trying to pass their run test – a brutal test famous around the athletic community as one of the most impossible tasks. Meanwhile, Hogarth was also getting her (tired and sore) feet in the door in the American political world. She started working for the campaign of Pat Harris, a progressive democratic challenger to Dianne Feinstein's U.S. Senate seat. Harris is a first-time candidate who has spent his life working as a criminal defense lawyer. She describes one of the main objectives for the early stages of the campaign is getting the name out there and branding and marketing. Hogarth provides insight to this aspect as she is young and creative. She had the idea, because of her connection to USC, of getting Harris to come speak to the student population on campus.

This great idea did not easily come to fruition, but because of Hogarth's background in sports, she knew she had to not give up and keep trying until she found a way. It was difficult for her to find a platform to sponsor or host this event, which surprised her.

"Since we see speakers and events on campus all the time, I thought it would be simple for a student to bring the idea, the subject, and do the planning – but I did not even know where to go first," she said.

Hogarth eventually teamed up with the Young Americans for Liberty society on campus. She found a fellow student who had a connection to a Republican running for Senate in Missouri, Austin Petersen. Something that the University wants to see in an event is diversity, as they are a nonpartisan institution. By adding a Republican and making it a debate rather than a speech, it makes it more interesting and adds to marketing value as it caters to more people and will hopefully generate a larger audience.

Annenberg Center for Leadership and Politics in the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism approved this format and decided to sponsor the event. Hogarth is still in charge of much of the planning and marketing as well as finding the remainder of the fundraising. Hogarth is hoping to get a large attendance to the event, around 200. She is using marketing skills through institutional aspects as well as word of mouth. As the Trojan Family with its opportunities and connections were what initially drew her to USC, she is trying to utilize these to promote her hard work.

The candidates are debating about "Grassroots Insurgency from the Left and Right" which involves how these candidates are challenging the traditional Democratic and Republican mold. Harris is a first-time candidate running against an incredibly famous and well-known woman in the U.S. Senate, Dianne Feinstein. Harris is running on a more progressive side of the left. Petersen, on the other hand, ran for the Libertarian Party in the 2016 election and received the second-most votes behind Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson. The Libertarian Party has been a long-standing faction of the GOP. Currently, both parties are in the middle of a transition – or even identity crisis – creating a void for factions to gain more traction and support. Both candidates identify as "political outsiders" and as part of the surge in anti-establishment candidates from both parties entering DC to promote changes to the slow, stereotypical bureaucracy. They will debate about the future of the values that their respective parties support.

As an interesting parallel, Hogarth has had some feelings of being an outsider throughout her college experience and will most likely have them in the future. She is a Canadian with a dream to work in American politics. Also, she is a student-athlete who has had so much focus and determination on lacrosse that she feels different than her classmates and peers who are focusing their time and energy on career oriented goals. Many student-athletes spread their time to accomplish both sport and academic goals. But as she begins to make the initial transition to the work life, Hogarth feels like an outsider in the new world she is entering of American political campaigns, specifically. Luckily, she found a candidate who is a self-proclaimed outsider and values her work ethic and determination undoubtedly gained from her experience as a student athlete.

USC lacrosse's Avery Hogarth's event "Grassroots Insurgency from the Left and Right" with a debate between Pat Harris and Austin Petersen is on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at the Forum at Wallis Annenberg Hall from 12-1:30 p.m.

Written by Riley Scott

Players Mentioned

Riley Scott